Osage Indian murders

The Osage Indian Murders were a series of murders of Osage Indians in Osage County, Oklahoma, traced to a gang led by William "King of Osage Hills" Hale, with the aim of gaining access to the oil wealth of tribe members.

It was an early high-profile FBI success and dramatized as an episode in the 1959 film, The FBI Story.

Hale, his nephews and some members of the Osage Nation were convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison.

Murder in Osage County

In the early 1920s the West was shaken by murders of eighteen Osage Indians in Osage County, Oklahoma within a short period of time. Regional Colorado newspapers reported the murders as the “Reign of Terror” on the Osage reservation.

In 1921, locals discovered the body of twenty-five-year-old Anna Brown. Unable to find the killer, local authorities put the case aside. In February 1923, Henry Roan, a cousin of Brown, was found shot in the head in his car. A month later, a nitroglycerin bomb demolished the house of Bill and Rita Smith, located in Fairfax, Oklahoma. The blast instantly killed Rita and her servant Nettie Brookshire. A week later, Bill Smith died of massive injuries from the blast. Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women occurred between 1921 and 1923. Tribal elders of the Osage Nation hired the assistance of the newly organized Federal Bureau of Investigation - the (FBI)^[1].

Oil wealth

In 1897 oil was first discovered in Osage County and by 1920 the market for oil had grown dramatically. In 1929 $27 million dollars was reported being held by the Guardian System, an organization set up to protect the financial interests of 883 Osage families in Osage County.^[2]

Investigation of the murders

Four agents were sent by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which had federal jurisdiction over the reservation. Working undercover for two years, the agents discovered a crime ring of petty criminals led by Bill Hale, a wealthy rancher, known in Osage County as the "King of the Osage Hills". He and his nephews, Ernest and Roy Burkhart, had migrated from Texas to Osage County to find jobs in the oil fields. Once there, they discovered the immense wealth of the Osage Nation due to its having oil-rich lands.

To gain part of the wealth, Hale persuaded his nephew Ernest to marry the full-blooded Osage Mollie Kyle. She was the sister of Anna Brown and Rita Smith.^[3] As the evidence unfolded, Hale had organized the deaths of Mollie’s mother Lizzie Q Kyle; her cousin Henry Roan; Anna; and the Smiths, to cash in on the insurance policies and oil head rights of each family member.^[4] Hale, his Burkhart nephews, and the ranch hands they hired to murder the Osage were convicted in trials from 1926 to 1929 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Books on the subject

• Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation, ISBN 978-1571780836
• The Osage Indian Murders: The True Story of a 21-Murder Plot to Inherit the Headrights of Wealthy Osage Tribe Members, ISBN 978-0965917414

References

1. ^ "Murder and Mayhem in the Osage Hills", FBI website
2. ^ Garrick Bailey, Art of the Osage, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), 142
3. ^ Louis F. Burns, A History of the Osage People, (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989) 439-442
4. ^ Ibid, 441

External links

• Osage Murders, Oklahoma Historical Society
• "Osage Indian Murders", 3,274 pages of original casenotes, FBI